Stars

Summary: There's not much the stars haven't seen. Silent guardians, they watch over them and witness. Obito, Minato-Sensei… Life goes on after every loss they experience. OneShot, Rin- and Kakashi-centric

Warnings: none.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

Obito is dead.

The words still are painful, a sharp, stabbing hurt in his heart. Kakashi repeats them again and again because feeling the pain in his heart means he still has one. Even though he isn't sure if that is irrefutable proof, he clings to it.

It has been a week since they have lost Obito – they haven't lost him, he has killed him – and the funeral service has taken place. The name of another hero – another child, his friend, a part of his family – has been carved into the stone and visiting him every day isn't punishment enough. At least, that's what Kakashi thinks. He doesn't know how Minato-sensei thinks about it. Their teacher hasn't even been able to attend the service. War is still raging and Hidden Leaf needs every single shinobi. But he probably would approve. Nine years of training under the man who – as the rumors say – will be the next Hokage have left him with a fairly good impression of what Minato-sensei would approve of and what not.

He would approve of Kakashi coming to visit Obito every day.

He would not approve of the fact that Kakashi tries to punish himself for something he had tried to avoid but had failed to.

But then, Minato-sensei had been blaming himself pretty much for things that haven't ever been in his hands so he definitely is not the person to judge him. The only other person he knows well enough to mind her opinion is Rin, and he hasn't seen her since the service, either. He doesn't want to see her. He tries to avoid meeting her, takes extra effort to go out of her way. Obito will never see her again – why should he be allowed to? Obito gave him the eye he covers with his hitai-ate and tries to forget. He doesn't want Rin to see this eye. He doesn't want to see Rin. He wants to see Rin. He doesn't…

His body has a mind of his own.

His home that isn't a home is empty and still. They're threatening to crush him, these white walls, the empty hall, the disinfected kitchen. He storms out of the apartment and onto the street. It's dark, it's late. His feet start wandering aimlessly. Few people are out, some drunken villagers, a few shinobi hurrying somewhere, not pausing to look at anyone. Kakashi doesn't know where he's going, it doesn't matter. The streets grow dark and darker and the lamp posts drown in darkness. Kakashi is drowning, too, and he feels so numb he doesn't even care to try and swim. He doesn't remember having directed his feet to the training grounds, then to the Hokage's tower, to the Uchiha compounds, back to the training grounds and to Rin's house. One single, tiny light shines in the window he knows is her room. Before he knows it, he is inside.

Rin doesn't seem surprised to see him. Her brown eyes are dry and tired and sad and she just looks at him. Kakashi sees her and feels the same mad urge to run and to stay, to collapse crying and to scream at her. To hide his face and never look at her again and to never stop looking at her for the rest of his life. His muscles twitch in flight reflex, and Rin says: "Stay."

He stays.

She switches off the light and sits next to him on her bed. They don't talk at all. Soft light filters through the window. He takes a deep breath and for some reason starts trembling and Rin wraps her arms around him and holds him together. She holds all the shattered and broken pieces that he is. Kakashi clutches at her tightly and closes his eye and tears seep through the fabric of his hitai-ate and Kakashi thinks Obito shouldn't cry. Bbecause he is holding Rin and Rin is holding Obito and Kakashi is slowly disappearing. Kakashi, Rin whispers softly; and there are stars in the black sky, a few small, little, bright stars.

Rin's arms and the stars, that's all what he can feel and see.

Minato-sensei is dead.

Kakashi doesn't feel anything anymore. He's numb, frozen, and he knows some of his fellow shinobi think he's cold and devoid of all emotion. The man who has sacrificed himself for the good of the village is the man who told him to survive no matter what is the man who has gone back on his word and died. Kakashi can't remember the last words they exchanged. He can't remember the last time his sensei has ruffled his hair affectionately, or has told him he was proud, or has invited him for dinner knowing Kakashi wouldn't come. The Yellow Flash of Konoha, the Yondaime Hokage, is dead, and Hidden Leaf is mourning with an intensity that equals the relief they feel that the kyuubi is banned and the village is safe. The last things Kakashi remembers are his latest missions, the ones he had as ANBU, the ones he has killed and hunted and murdered in the name of the man who tried to keep all this away from him for his entire childhood. In the name of the village. Now, in this time of brittle ceasefire there's no fight he can throw himself into. There are no missions that most likely will be suicide missions he can ask for and while the entire village is waiting for the news that finally will bring peace to their home, Kakashi is waiting for the order that will grant him the opportunity to die.

He doesn't attend the funeral.

The man he knew – his Minato-sensei – isn't the man every single member of Hidden Leafs is paying respect to at the moment. His Minato-sensei is a different person, not the Yondaime Hokage, not the famous Yellow Flash but just Minato-sensei, the one who has been his father and his family for more than twelve years. But like the Yondaime Hokage, Minato-sensei died three days ago. That's probably the only thing they had in common.

He knows where his feet are taking him. This time he knows and he tells himself he's just checking on her. She won't even be at home because Rin, of course, will be attending the ceremony. But he just wants to look at her room, knowing there's at least one member of his family who still is alive.

His family is slowly dying.

There's only him and Rin left and he hasn't seen her since they have fought the kyuubi, fought the fight that would, ultimately, end in their sensei giving his life for them. Kakashi feels numb and cold once again and the pain is so great he wonders how a single person can hold onto it by himself. Rin's window is open. He sneaks in quietly. And Rin is on her bed, her face buried in a pillow, her body rigid and motionless. She has heard him. She doesn't react.

Kakashi stretches out next to her but doesn't touch her. She is not crying. She turns her face to him and he can see her brown eyes with their golden flecks inside, her lips, torn and bloody, dark rings under her eyes and something in them that makes him shudder. Desperation. He freezes in fear because Rin is strong, Rin is fearless, Rin is… Rin has been the one to comfort him; Rin has been the one who has called him back from the dead every time he came from another ANBU mission. Rin was the one to shout at him and bully him until he would wake up bit by bit from his stupor after Obito's death. Now, Rin is what he has been two years ago, and he's in her place. So he wraps his arms around her stiff figure and feels her tense. And then, slowly, she relaxes. She starts shaking, hard, helplessly, and he just holds her until she turns her head and crushes her lips to his. Desperation, sadness, loneliness, it all speaks from the way her arms tighten around his neck, from the way her lips claim his, from the way her body arches into his and her trembling hands run down his back. Her lips taste salty and her skin smells like flowers and medicinal alcohol. Kakashi touches her with wonder, carefully, afraid she might break, and Rin lets her head fall back and tries to hold him as tight as possible. Their eyes rarely leave each other. Kakashi kisses her lips, her neck, her body, and she caresses the star-shaped scar on his left shoulder, and they just lay there, in each other's arms, and look at each other.

Obito is dead. Minato-sensei is dead. Rin has left, probably is dead by now as well. The Third is dead. Jiraiya-sama is dead. Asuma is dead. Orochimaru is dead. Itachi is dead.

Somewhere along the way, Kakashi has lost count of the people he has lost, the ones he knew who died, the ones who fled or who were killed.

The world keeps turning.

Kakashi keeps living.

One day, Rin returns.

She doesn't tell where she has been. She doesn't object to the harsh treatment she receives both from Konoha intelligence and the Council. Even some of her old colleagues muster her with suspicious glances. She can't resent them for it – she knows she'd probably have reacted the same way. She fled this village by her own decision; she left after the war ended and didn't look back. She has travelled far and near, has rarely stayed longer than a few years, sometimes only weeks. From what the rumors reached her Tsunade-hime had done something similar and she had been welcomed back happily.

But Rin is far past wondering about the human mind.

She walks in, finds herself escorted to the Hokage's office and faces a woman that still looks exactly as she remembered her from fifteen years ago. She's questioned, searched, mustered and sent home to wait for the Council's decision. She shrugs and leaves, knowing there's no actual home waiting for her. She goes to the training grounds instead, to visit Minato-sensei and Obito.

Eventually, they meet. Konoha isn't that big.

Kakashi finds she's still as beautiful as she was when they last met.

Rin finds it unbelievable how she, now a grown woman, still loves him as she had when he still was the quiet, arrogant boy he had been when they first met or the desperate, tired teenager she had left.

Her file says things like leaving to grow in both mind and body, talks of developing new skills for healing and treating injuries during travel and mentions invaluable help for poor villages and war-torn countries but doesn't mention she left because she couldn't breathe any more.

Maybe it was the war, the deaths, maybe the work, her gruesome genius when it came to altering her medical jutsu to kill, not to heal. Maybe it was the weight of Obito's last words, and with them, the force of Kakashi's love she had always dreamed of but now found herself unable to bear. They are fifteen years older now; they have learned and experienced and, of course, had partners. But now, it is like they are discovering something they had left sleeping since the day Rin left.

In the last, warm sun of a summer's day, Kakashi kisses her, on the abandoned training grounds, in front of the cenotaph. Obito is watching and they both know. Rin smiles. She tugs Kakashi's mask further down and traces his lips with her finger, and he sighs and his eyelid flutters shut. I've waited for you, he whispers, and she smiles again and kisses him again. She has left to find herself, to find the answer to why Obito had to die for her to get what she always had wished for, and fifteen years and a thousand miles between them hadn't been able to let her see the answer. She has returned home, to the place she belongs, and here, finally, the answer awaits her, crystal-clear. She can see it now, can reconcile with Obito: he saved Kakashi, and through him, he saved her, and now she can tell him what she always had wanted to.

"Thank you, Obito," she tells him. "You have saved us both. I wish you could be here now, but… Thank you."

For saving Kakashi.

Four weeks after she has returned to Konoha, Rin and Kakashi sleep with each other. Rin lies there afterwards, in the soft light of the moon, underneath the stars, and feels Kakashi next to her: his tense muscles, the hard skin of his scars, his calloused fingers trailing over her face and her neckline, playing with her hair, a dark eye watching her intensely. When he sees her looking at him he smiles, tentatively, and he looks so young and vulnerable she feels like fifteen again. She doesn't want him to leave, doesn't ever want to lose him again. One single night with him and she feels like they have never been apart, are inseparable once again, like those few months before she left.

"I still have to take mission requests," he says quietly, reading her mind. She shudders. He lifts her chin so she'll meet his eyes.

"I have obligations and you have them, too. We might not be able to see each other all the time."

She looks at him, at his dark, serious face, and feels her heart beat faster just at the thought of losing him again. In his eyes, she can see the same fear she feels. Maybe this was a bad idea – one night together and they're no independent beings any more but one entity, one heart and soul. But then, it seems like they were meant to be and Obito gave them his blessing. Rin feels like the part of her she had been missing all those years has been returned to her. She has given herself to Kakashi today, fully and entirely, and she won't regret it. Not ever again.

"We'll be together," she whispers and smiles at him. "I'll wait for you to come back home."

And Kakashi, knowing she has finally granted him the reason to stay alive and return, smiles. He looks so young, so damn young. The hint of fear she had seen seconds ago, flickering in his eye, is lost. He won't come back one day and find her gone.

"I'll always come back."

It's a promise.

She'll keep hers. She'll wait for him, afraid and worrying, and will be there when he returns, healing his wounds and soothing the pain.

He'll keep his. He'll return from his missions, exhausted and injured, but he'll always return to her.

They'll die together, one day, far from this one, smiling and holding hands. But that's another story.

Until then, they'll always be together.

Stars shine brightly.